Why Some Memories Simply Disappear
The science of remembering… and forgetting
This is a modified excerpt from Inside Your Head 🧠, a weekly newsletter exploring why your brain makes you think, feel, and act the way you do, written by me, Elemental’s senior writer and a former brain scientist. Subscribe here so you won’t miss the next one.
I have a pretty bad memory. It’s not prohibitive — I can remember grocery lists and practical day-to-day things no problem — but friends will occasionally reference conversations or events from years ago that I have little recollection of. I was reminded of my shortcoming recently when my mom, who’s in her seventies and statistically should have a worse memory than I do, alluded to a past Thanksgiving that my college roommate had spent with my family. I have zero memory of this event (sorry, Melissa!). I honestly thought my mom might have made it up until she showed me photos of the two of us baking pies together in my parents’ kitchen.
What gives? Why do some people have minds like an iron trap while others of us are floating around like goldfish? (Any Ted Lasso fans out there?)
There are three main processes when it comes to memory — encoding, consolidation, and retrieval — and problems can occur at any one of these stages to cause you to forget things.
